


Won't Let Her Go

by ThatsNoShipItsASpaceStation



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: BAMF Alex Danvers, Background Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer, F/F, Fluff, Some Sanvers angst sorry, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, post-Sanvers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2019-06-10 19:22:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15298335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatsNoShipItsASpaceStation/pseuds/ThatsNoShipItsASpaceStation
Summary: Lena is nearly killed and Kara doesn't want to let her go when she is so vulnerable, prompting Lena's realization about the hero's identity.Set during season 3 pre-finale but not 100% canon. Once a one-shot but has since grown into something bigger.––





	1. Abduction

Her heels clacked across the floor of the parking garage as she made her way over to the car in the VIP spot. Lena Luthor was tired and ready to head home after a long day of meetings and project reviews, so when she saw something out of the corner of her eye while digging through her purse for her keys, she didn’t really react to it. She definitely did notice though, a few moments later, when she heard the unmistakable click of a gun cocking next to her head.

Lena froze, eyes looking up at the reflection on the glossy black of the car in front of her to see the rough outline of a man with a gun pointed at her head. She slowly withdrew her hands from her purse and held them up.

“Very good,” the man said. “Now give me the purse.” He fished the keys out of the top of the purse where Lena had dropped them at the sight of his reflection. He unlocked the car with the keyfob and told her to get into the driver seat, getting in the backseat behind her. “Good. Oh, and don’t bother with the panic button in your car – I’ve already disabled your security.”

He gave her an address, and she started driving. Lena now cursed herself for the dark tinting and bullet proof glass she’d paid extra for, which would now prevent anyone from seeing or attacking her abductor – even if she could get her security or the police to respond. The only hope she had was that her security team had managed to notify the police before being “disabled”. Her stomach churned at the implications of that word for her security personnel.

Eventually, they stopped at the parking garage of the local strip mall, long since closed and empty by this time of night. Lena was told to drive up a few floors and then park. They got out of the car, and the man gripped her upper arm painfully and led her out to the middle of the floor with the nozzle of the gun against her head, far away from her car or the very few other vehicles still remaining in the structure.

The man pressed the gun harder into the back of her head as he removed his hand from her arm, but a moment later it returned, this time pressing Lena's own cell phone into her forearm.

“Take it,” he ordered tersely, “and call in Supergirl.”

Questions swirled in Lena’s head, but calling Supergirl was already top at the list of things she wished she could do right now, so she kept her mouth shut and selected Kara Danvers from her contacts. She just hoped Kara would be able to get a hold of Supergirl quickly.

“Hi, Lena,” Kara’s sunny voice came over the line.

“Hi,” Lena said, choosing not to say Kara’s name, just in case the man hadn’t seen the name she'd selected before calling. She tried to keep her voice calm, years of business meetings and tense formal conversations with the other rich and powerful coming to her aid. “I need you to do something for me – can you get a hold of Supergirl? I know this is sudden and normally I wouldn’t bother her, but there’s a man currently holding a gun to my head so I’d really like it if she could get here quickly–”

Lena cut off, as the man took the phone back from her and tossed it carelessly to the ground. “There,” he said lightly, returning his hand to its grip on Lena's arm, “that wasn’t so hard. Now all we have to do is wait for her to get here.”

“Why are you doing this?” Lena asked, managing to keep her voice calm.

The man laughed harshly. “What, you’re surprised someone wants to kill a Luthor?” He continued laughing, and then sobered. “This specific time, let’s just say that Morgan Edge’s son is angry about what happened to his father in prison, and he’s eager to send his condolences to your mother on the loss of her daughter.”

“Seriously??” Lena said incredulously, disbelieving. “My mother tried to kill me, she isn’t going to be the least perturbed by my passing.”

The man made a non-committal noise. “Yet your mother tried to kill Morgan Edge when he went after you.”

“But why Supergirl?”

“Supergirl was protecting you from Edge, and now Morgan Junior wants her to watch you die."

Lena's insides froze at the words.

"It’s nothing personal,” he said, mildly and a bit sarcastically, “just business.”

––

Kara listened to Lena's voice on the phone with growing trepidation – from the first words she could hear the tension in the other woman's voice, both from her superhearing and from knowing Lena well, cluing her in that something was wrong. Once Lena said the word gun the hero immediately speed-changed into her supersuit, grabbing her earpiece and her Supergirl phone. Kara heard a man’s voice cut in as she called Alex on the superphone, still listening in to the quiet conversation on the other line.

“Alex,” she said urgently as soon as her sister answered, “Lena’s been kidnapped and is being held at gunpoint, I want to go over there now but it sounds like they’re waiting for me, for Supergirl. Can you tap into my other phone to hear the audio? It sounds like they didn’t hang up yet but they’ve dropped the phone or something. How soon can you get there?”

Kara heard Alex passing commands over to Winn in the background. “Ok, we’re suiting up and Winn’s tracing your call. We'll be out in five – ok, Winn says he has the trace.” Alex gave the address. “Get up in the air and give me eyes, but stay really far away for now. We don’t want them to see you and do whatever they need you for until we’re in position.”

Kara sped to her open window and leapt into the air, going almost straight up but angling slightly to give her a better view of the site. She heard the team’s prep and their relayed orders as she scanned the building.

“It’s a parking garage – it’ll be hard to get close to him without him seeing me first, even if I try crashing through the concrete.”

“No crashing through the concrete,” Alex responded without thinking. “How close do you need to be to stop that bullet with your superspeed?”

“He has the nozzle of the gun pressed to the back of her head,” Kara replied, frowning in worry. She cocked her head to the side in intense concentration. “I’d have to be really close. Like … maybe 30 feet?”

“That’s really close,” Alex sighed in frustration. It would be hard to get up close to him in the middle of such a large open space like that. Noises of the van carrying the team to location filtered through the background of the call as Alex considered, and Kara could hear them coordinating with NCPD. After a moment to think, Alex had a plan. “Ok, here’s what we’re going to do.”

––

They waited in the garage, Lena occasionally hearing noises from her phone – apparently the man hadn’t ended her call, and she wondered what Kara was doing right this second on her behalf. Lena wasn't religious and didn’t believe in any higher powers, but she hoped to every potential god right now that help was on its way, that Supergirl was coming.

The man behind her seemed to be completely unbothered by the wait, not fidgeting or trying to make any small talk.

“You didn’t give Supergirl this location,” Lena said, realizing.

The man scoffed. “She’s a superhero. She’ll figure it out.”

Lena couldn’t believe she was thinking this, but she hoped her abductor was right, at least in this.

Sure enough, a few minutes later – which seemed like an eternity to Lena – they heard a woman’s voice calling.

“Ms. Luthor? Lena?”

The Superhero appeared over the far edge on the uphill side of the parking structure, floating over the railing and touching down just inside on the concrete. She held up her hands in a placating gesture as she spotted the CEO and abductor, and started walking slowly towards them, talking as she went.

“Ok, I’m here,” she said, “and I’m listening. So let’s talk about this.”

“Ah-ah-ah, stop right where you are,” the man said, gripping Lena tighter. “Don’t come any closer.”

Kara stopped in her tracks, but kept her hands where they were, obviously hoping to talk him down. “No one has to get hurt,” Supergirl said. “I just want to talk to you.”

“Well, I have a job to do, Supergirl, and it doesn’t involve talking,” he said, amused. “I’m a hitman, not a therapist.”

The superhero’s expression grew grim, and she lowered her hands. “Why are you doing this?” Kara had heard the hitman's conversation over the phone with Lena already, but she wanted to keep him talking to give Alex and team more time to get into position. She could see the agents now with her x-ray vision coming up the stairs.

“Well,” the hitman smiled maliciously, and Kara could see that this was the part that the man enjoyed, “the thing is, Lillian Luthor went and had Morgan Edge killed in prison.”

Behind the hitman, Agent Alex Danvers and her team came up the stairs soundlessly, fanning out as they exited the stairwell. The hitman didn’t seem to notice anything amiss, and Supergirl concentrated on keeping her eyes fixed on the man so as to not give away the action happening behind him with a stray glance.

“What does Lillian Luthor have anything to do with why you want Lena?” Kara asked, drawing the time out. “I’ve already rescued Lena multiple times from her mother.”

“Very good, Supergirl, and that’s where you come in,” the hitman said smugly. “Edge Junior has deduced that there’s something between you, since you keep protecting this Luthor, and he wants you both to pay. So here I am, making you both pay,” he finished with a wide smile.

Supergirl’s expression turned even harder at that, but before she could ask another question, some small sound from the agents fanning out made the hitman turn his head to glance behind him.

Kara knew this was her chance – he would only be turned away for a second – so she dashed forward with superspeed.

The hitman realized his mistake almost immediately as he looked over his shoulder to see black-clad figures taking up positions behind him, and his hand squeezed on the trigger. Kara was still too far away to stop a bullet, but she _was_ faster than human reaction speed, and that brief moment between the man turning his head, making a realization, and squeezing the trigger was enough for Supergirl to close the distance.

Still, she couldn’t be sure she could reach Lena in time, so as she dashed forward, Supergirl shot her laser vision at the man’s hand. Her shot was off though, the hero not adjusting correctly for her forward movement in her rush to get closer, and instead of a pinpoint shot intended to disable his hand, the laser swept over the back of his hand and onto the gun.

It was too little, too late. The hitman’s hand had squeezed the trigger nearly all the way down by the time the laser burned into his flesh, and the involuntary twitch from the pain in the gunman’s hand simply finished the job. A gunshot rang out across the open space.

By now, Kara was much closer, and as if everything was moving in slow motion, she saw the recoil of the gun just as she reached her left hand out to put it over the nozzle of the handgun, chasing the upward movement from the recoil. Using her other hand, she wrapped her arm around Lena and cupped the woman’s head against her shoulder, continuing to move forward until she had interposed herself between Lena and her attacker. She felt a sharp push into her palm as the bullet bounced off her skin. With the same motion from covering the nozzle, she flung the gun cupped in her left hand upwards and away from herself and the CEO.

The hitman, hand still gripping the handgun tightly, was thrown back from the pair, feet fulling leaving the ground as he flew backward. When he was far enough away from them, Kara wrapped her other arm around Lena and lifted the other woman slightly to speed backwards and take cover several meters away behind a column.

The DEO agents sprung into action immediately on seeing Supergirl move, rushing the hitman. Crying out, the man dropped the now burning-hot gun from his hand as he slammed into the ground. He quickly leapt to his feet, and noticing the black-clad strike team surging towards him, he grabbed something from inside his jacket and threw it at the agents as he turned and fled away from both Supergirl and the advancing squad.

Lena had wrapped her arms around Supergirl tightly as soon as she felt the hero grab her, and she was clinging desperately to Kara and shaking violently, so when Supergirl saw the grenade, all she could do was shout.

“ _Alex, grenade!_ ”

Alex had already seen the man reach into his jacket and so was prepared when she saw the glowing red grenade tossed towards them. She watch his arm motion and guessed where he would toss it, instinctively making two quick steps to the side to catch it. With a smooth motion, Agent Danvers threw it back towards the hitman just as he leapt over the railing of the ramp to the lower level of the parking garage, yelling to her team, “ _DOWN. TAKE COVER._ ”

As she gave the orders she was already following them herself, her body instinctively curling to put the parts of her body wearing protective armor closest to the blast, the senior agent thankful in that moment for all the mindless blast drills in DEO agent training. Black-clad agents around her were reacting similarly, throwing themselves downward. The explosion hit before Alex's body even touched the ground.

Agent Danvers was pushed back from the blast, and she rolled with her sideways motion as she hit the ground, trying to plant her feet to roll back upright, but she found she was still moving too fast to safely stop so she let her body roll one more time. The second roll seemed to do it, and she bounded up, already shouting orders again, ears ringing slightly.

She glanced over the team in a split-second damage assessment – a handful of other agents were already upright with her or were rolling to their feet now, and a few were still in their curled blast positions. The agent closest to the blast was half-curled, as if she’d been knocked unconscious while in blast position.

“Agent down, med team respond!” she shouted, and saw that the other agents on their feet were already responding to her orders to pursue the suspect. Alex raced over towards the railing where the target had jumped just moments before so she could get eyes on the pursuit and direct the action there. She noted the damage to the railing dividing the ramp from the level below and estimated that the grenade had exploded in mid-air. She reached the damaged railing and looked down, standing next to the other agent who was acting as eyes on the target.

From her new position Alex could see the target lying face-down on the concrete, likely pushed into the ground from the blast behind him, possibly while he was still jumping down. The rest of her team rushed around to a more easily clearable section of the railing to drop down and they quickly advanced on the fallen hitman.

Alex lifted her chin to the side, but didn’t take her eyes off the target as her team circled his unmoving form. “Supergirl,” she said over her shoulder, “weapons check on the target?”

Kara blinked her eyes and scanned the man, adjusting slightly to try and distinguish him from all the other things nearby. “He looks clear,” Kara answered. She hadn't moved from where she was still firmly but gently pressing Lena against the concrete pillar, shielding her. “I think he might be unconscious, but still alive,” the hero added after a beat, listening to the hitman’s heart rate decreasing steadily.

Alex nodded, and considered the situation very briefly. If she tried to put the man in restraints, she might cause further damage and even possibly kill him if he had any severe injuries and she moved him – but if she didn’t and the man was able to still attack, one of her agents could be hurt or killed. However, Kara usually wasn’t wrong in her assessments, so the senior agent hedged her bets by having her agents put ankle cuffs on the man’s legs, but otherwise not move him till the med team arrived with a stretcher.

Since the weapons-hot part of the mission appeared to be over, Alex did a more thorough assessment of her agents and set up a perimeter. The other support teams sprung into action around them once Alex had given the all-clear, boiling up the stairs like a kicked anthill.

Kara pulled back slightly from the pillar when she heard the all-clear from her sister, and Lena followed her, not allowing any space to form between them as she clung to the hero. The woman was sobbing shakily, head tucked into her shoulder, and Kara rubbed her back with slow circles, repeating softly, “It’s ok, I’ve got you. You’re safe now, it’s ok.”

Lena’s breathing slowed down a little, but she didn't lift her head off the caped hero's shoulder, and hiccuped, “The gun fired- and I thought- I thought that was it- that I’d died.”

“Shhh,” Supergirl soothed, “I’ve got you, you’re safe now, and I’m not going anywhere without you.”

She tried to step over to speak with her sister, and Lena didn’t want to let her go, so the hero simply held the other woman against her chest and carried her along as Supergirl walked up to the lead agent.

“Alex,” she said in a soft but carrying tone. When her sister turned to look at her, she continued. “I’m going to get her out of here, take her to someplace safe.”

The elder Danvers glanced at the woman in her little sister’s arms, and with that quick visual examination agreed with Kara’s assessment – Lena was in shock, and needed to be taken somewhere where she could calm down.

“Her apartment might not be safe,” Alex said, making the quick mental calculation given the abductor's apparent knowledge of Lena's security and habits.

Supergirl nodded, and in a voice so low that only her sister could hear, she clarified, “my place.” Alex frowned immediately, but before she could respond, Kara continued speaking, shaking her head. “I’m not going to leave her alone right now, and there’s nowhere else she'll consider safe,” she said firmly.

Alex grimaced, but conceded, nodding. Lena was smart and was probably going to figure out Supergirl's identity sooner or later, and Alex knew Kara had been wanting to tell her for some time now – and besides, if her sister had set her mind on telling the CEO then there wasn’t much that Alex could do to stop her. Stubbornness ran in the family.

At Alex’s nod, Kara turned and walked over to the nearest opening to the sky, saying something low and reassuring to the woman in her arms that Alex couldn’t make out, and took off into the air.


	2. Reveal over a cup of mint green tea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ack! I am so incredibly late on updating this fic!
> 
> I'll be honest, I got a little bit lost with where I wanted the fic to go and then got distracted with writing other fics, none of which I posted because I felt bad about not updating this fic first -- which meant that I didn't end up posting *anything* which was not what I wanted to have happen!
> 
> So I still am going to work on where I want this fic to go, but I'm also going to start posting up the several other fics I've been writing in the meantime. I've had a couple chapters done for this fic for quite some time now, so I'm just cleaning them up to post them. Hopefully that process will help inspire me to finish this story up.
> 
> I have no beta readers whatsoever but what can I say, I like to live dangerously :}  
> \--------------

Kara touched down into her apartment gently – in the same spot where she’d taken off in fear and worry not more than an hour before. She moved to set the woman in her arms down on the floor next to her, but Lena shook her head wordlessly at the attempt, so instead Kara just kept holding her, still rubbing her back and repeating her assurances that she was safe now. She turned on all the lights in the apartment and pulled the curtains, giving them some privacy.

As the CEO’s heart rate and breathing gradually calmed, Kara put a pot on the stove to heat water for tea, and pulled down a couple mugs from the cupboard one-handed. When the water was ready, she put two bags of herbal tea in the cups and carried them and the still-slightly-shaking Lena to the couch. She sat down, cupping Lena gently in her lap and shifting the other woman to sit sideways against her, legs curled around Kara’s knees. The hero kept up the circular motion of her hand on Lena’s back.

She hadn’t mentioned yet what they were doing in Kara’s apartment and why Kara hadn’t appeared when they got here – Kara suspected that Lena wasn’t aware and just recognized the comfortable setting, or wasn't ready to ask questions yet – and Kara wasn’t going to bring such a potentially emotionally charged subject up when the CEO was still feeling vulnerable. That was definitely a conversation for the morning, or whenever Lena felt up to it. Until then, Kara intended to just act like Lena already knew all about her and that everything they were doing was normal.

When Lena had calmed a little more, Kara picked up a mug and took a sip, noting that it wasn’t too terribly hot anymore – it had taken the superhero a long time to figure out how to tell what was too hot for humans, but she felt she had it mostly down now – and offered it to the CEO. Lena just shook her head, and so Kara continued sipping at it, the very normal action seeming to help the CEO calm down.

Supergirl still had her earpiece in for her superphone, but with the volume turned almost all the way down, and she listened as the team cleaned up the area and the suspect was admitted to the local hospital under guard. Apparently, he had sustained head injuries in the blast and fall, and had not regained consciousness since then.

After a few minutes of calm, regular activities around her, Lena seemed to be recovering from her shock somewhat, and she accepted the other cup of tea that Kara offered her.

“If you don’t like that one, I have a bunch of other flavors,” Kara offered as Lena took her first sip.

Lena shook her head, mumbling that it was fine, and taking another larger sip.

Kara smiled at that, and listened to the quiet sounds of normal city activity filtering in through the still-open window. Focusing on something normal and quiet helped her calm down after a rough night fighting aliens, but she didn’t know how Lena could hear the sounds of the city, so she wondered about other sounds that she might be able to use. She glanced at the tv.

Kara set her mug down on the coffee table next to them. “I’m going to put the tv on low, ok?” she said, rubbing her free hand up and down Lena’s bicep slowly.

Lena took a breath and exhaled. “That’s fine,” she said in a small voice, but it wasn’t shaky now, so Kara considered this an improvement.

“Ok,” Kara said softly, glad that she’d left the remote on the table last night where she could now reach it without getting up or shifting too much. She usually kept the volume low when she was by herself, since she didn’t need it very loud to hear it, and she flipped through a few channels until she found a re-run of A&E’s Pride and Prejudice.

Kara set the remote back down and wrapped her hand back around Lena to hug her again. “Sometimes it helps me to have something low going in the background,” she said softly by way of explanation. She wanted to keep talking to Lena, to give the other woman something to focus on instead of endlessly replaying the recent horrifying events in her head.

Lena made a soft noise in acknowledgement, mouth full of tea at the time. “Do you need to do that often?” she asked softly after she swallowed.

“Not every night,” Kara said, “but sometimes I have a lot of trouble calming down after all that action, and Alex kept getting angry about me breaking the floorboards with my restless pacing, so I tried some other less expensive ways of calming down.”

Lena smiled softly at the idea of Supergirl wearing down floorboards. “Like the teas,” she added.

“Like the teas,” Kara agreed. “That’s why I have so many different types, otherwise I might get bored of them.” She paused for a beat and then added, “Well, mostly because there are a _lot_ of different types of tea and I was perhaps the _teensiest_ bit curious what they tasted like.”

Lena gave a watery chuckle at that, and Kara smiled. The CEO seemed to be doing much better, well enough that Kara thought she might try to go change out of her supersuit.

“I need to change my clothes,” Kara said, shifting slightly – she’d had this suit on all day and Lena’s abduction wasn’t the only fight she'd had today. After a moment to let Lena absorb this information, she continued, “I just want to put on some pajamas. Are you going to be ok here on the couch while I do that? I’ll just be in the next room.”

Kara didn’t want to pressure Lena at all, so she made no motion to get up or move Lena off her lap, just waiting for the other woman’s response. After a beat or two, Lena nodded, lifting herself up and off Supergirl’s lap, setting herself down next to her on the couch.

Supergirl turned to look at Lena earnestly, one arm still draped around the CEO's back.

“I’m going to be just on the other side of that divider, and I can see through it and all the other walls of this apartment, and I can hear anything happening nearby, so you’re still safe even if you can’t see me,” she said reassuringly, giving Lena’s shoulder a soft squeeze. When Lena nodded again, Kara stood up and walked over to the bedroom, throwing an additional, “I’ll be right back,” over her shoulder as she went.

Once past the privacy screen separating the bedroom from the rest of her apartment, Kara used a bit of superspeed to strip off her suit and freshen herself up just a bit in the bathroom before grabbing her pajamas. The first ones on the stack were her favorite monkey-print ones, and she also dug into the pile for a comfortable oversized teeshirt and pajama pants for Lena. She was listening to the other woman’s heart rate, and could hear it starting to get faster the longer Kara was out of the living room, so with that she hurried back.

“Hey,” the freshly pajama'd hero greeted with a soft smile as she stepped back into the room around the privacy screen.

On seeing her, Lena’s shoulders immediately slumped in relief from the tension that had been building in them, and she promptly stood up to hug the blonde hero. “Kara,” she breathed in relief.

This was the first time since Kara had flown Lena in through the window as Supergirl that the L-Corp CEO had called her by her given name.

“Hey, it’s ok,” Kara said, returning the embrace and rubbing the other woman’s back. “I said I’d only be a bit and see, now I’m back.” Kara gently pulled herself back – of course first testing to see if Lena was ready to let her go by leaning away only a little bit, and when the CEO released her, Kara pulled back the rest of the way – and picked up the coffee mugs from the table. “I’m going to make some more tea.” She put both mugs in one hand and looped an arm around Lena, walking them into the kitchen.

Kara unhooked Lena at the kitchen island, dumping the used tea bags into the trash and putting the pot back on the stove to reheat the water. She smiled comfortingly over at Lena, who was looking a little small still, and pulled open the cupboard with her tea collection. “Ok, so, I have a lot of teas,” she announced, and gestured to the boxes. “Any preferences?”

Lena stepped up next to her and looked at the different ones. “I think I’ll go with a chamomile.” She was back to her shaky tone, and Kara suspected this was either from recognizing Supergirl as Kara or from the brief separation while Kara changed her clothes.

“Excellent choice, madame,” Kara said mock officiously, trying to keep the situation light, taking down the requested box and pulling out a packet. She looked at the rest of the boxes. “I like pretty much all of them, except the cranberry,” she pointed to the offending box with a wrinkled nose, “at least not without what Alex calls an ‘unconscionable amount of sugar’.” Lena gave another watery chuckle at that, and Kara grinned at the CEO, pleased with herself for getting the other woman to laugh.

“Oh!” Kara exclaimed, spotting a box on the shelf. “Mint green tea, I’ll do that.”

“You’re going to have green tea at night?” Lena asked slightly incredulously, but sounding more normal.

“Well,” Kara said, closing the cupboard, “it’s not like caffeine really affects me, so ....” She shrugged, dropping the tea bags into their mugs.


	3. Recovery and Jane Austen

Kara pulled open the fridge and peered inside dubiously, saying, “I don’t have much in the way of leftovers, but I could order something if you’re hungry.”

“Well,” Lena said, chewing on a lip, “I haven’t eaten dinner yet, but I don’t feel all that hungry really.” A shadow crossed over her face as the youngest Luthor recalled why she hadn’t eaten dinner yet, and Kara walked over to hold Lena's hand in hers gently, rubbing her thumb in a circle on the back of it. The side of Lena’s mouth lifted up into a small half smile as she watched the blonde’s ministrations on her hand.

“Hmm,” Kara mused, looking over at the enormous collection of menus she had stuck to the fridge door, “well I’m hungry, and we could get you something now and then you could eat it later if you wake up hungry in the middle of the night.” Lena agreed that was a good idea, so Kara picked up her phone from the tabletop with the one hand that wasn’t holding Lena’s, and turned to smile at the CEO – and then she noticed the other woman’s outfit.

“Oh!” she said, trying to clap a hand to her forehead, forgetting that her phone still in her hand and instead thumping her phone to her forehead. “I forgot to give you your pajamas.” Glancing at the phone in her hand, she left it on the table and walked back to the living room, picking up the folded clothes from the coffee table where she’d left them earlier to give Lena a hug. She turned back to the CEO, who’d followed her over. “Do you want to get changed?”

Lena took the sleep clothes as Kara handed them to her, noting the softness with appreciation, and said, “Yeah, I’d really like to get changed.” She paused and then continued with a soft chuckle, “I didn’t even realize it until you mentioned it.”

Kara grinned. “Ok, there’s the privacy screen there if you want to change behind it, and the bathroom is right there, and I’m gonna go call in the pizza.” She walked to the kitchen again and picked up the phone, calling back, “Requests?”

Lena went into the bedroom area and started unzipping her skirt, letting it drop to the floor and kicking it away from herself, as if ridding herself of an association with today's events. “Um, anything is ok, Hawaiian? Peperroni? Mushrooms?” Kara just called back an ‘ok’ without specifying which option she was ordering for Lena, and Lena heard her call up the pizza place.

The youngest Luthor still felt dazed and out of sorts, but she was enjoying the normalcy and lightness that Kara seemed to radiate. There were a lot of thoughts still swirling in her head but Lena was good at ignoring things– even if there were some questions she very much wanted to ask Kara. She definitely didn’t feel up to that right now though, and before she could start to feel shaky again,Lena finished changing and walked back out to the front just as Kara was hanging up.

“They’ll be here in 45 to an hour. Apparently the rest of National City also wants pizza at just before closing time,” the blonde was saying, mouth making a moue at the wait. Then she looked up and caught sight of Lena. “Oh, that looks good on you,” she said, smiling and walking over to hold Lena’s arms straight out to the side so she could see.

Lena’s lips twitched upwards and her eyes crinkled with amusement as she replied, “What, should I do a twirl? Model it for you?” Lena put action to words and she spun in front of Kara, who put her hands to her mouth and giggled as Lena strutted over to the kitchen table in a fairly good approximation of a catwalk strut, dropping into a model-like pose leaning with one elbow against the tabletop.

“Wow, you’re good at that – maybe you should pick that up as a side job,” Kara teased lightly with a playful grin. The hero was glad to see the other woman recovering enough to joke around. She turned to pour the now-boiling water into their mugs and switched off the stovetop.

“Oh, I’m sure the board would _love_ that,” Lena joked, rolling her eyes. “And the press.”

Kara’s smile widened. “Well,” she said, leaning over the table and passing Lena her tea, “I’m the press and I love it, so yes!”

Lena laughed then, a real laugh for the first time all evening. It felt good to laugh, even if she still felt a little breathless from the events of the day.

Kara looked over at the tv then, noticing that it was still on. “So, how do you feel about watching some Pride and Prejudice?”

“The A&E one?”

Kara nodded, and grabbed one of Lena’s hands to lead her to the couch again.

Lena continued, “Well, it’s my favorite version that I’ve seen. I like it better than the book – none of the speakers are identified in the conversations in the book so you have to guess who’s saying what while you're reading it – and it’s long enough that it basically covers all the events of the book.”

Kara lifted her eyebrows at the CEO in surprise as they both sat down on the couch, setting their mugs on the coffee table. “Wow, you sound like an expert,” she said, turning to look at Lena. “Lena Luthor,” she said in mock astonishment, “are you a closet Jane Austen nerd?”

Lena chuckled in response, arching an eyebrow. “Well, I’ve never really been in the closet,” she said roguishly, causing Kara to blush – the hero thought to herself that Lena should be back to normal soon if she was already trying to get Kara to blush every five minutes, which was the CEO's usual pastime when the pair hung out together.

After taking a moment to enjoy Kara’s blush, Lena elaborated, “I had a friend in college who was obsessed with Jane Austen. I wasn’t really for or against at the time but I just went along with her hobby, and after a while it grew on me.” She shrugged.

“I was the one to force Alex to watch it,” Kara said, turning back to the tv and picking up her mug. “I love me some good romance, but she likes stuff with more action in it. I know that her distaste for romance all for show though, and that she’s secretly a big softie,” she finished conspiratorially, briefly wiggling her eyebrows at Lena, making the other woman smile.

Kara pulled down the blankets from the back of the couch and she snuggled up to Lena to watch the show.

After a few minutes, Kara frowned, and said, “This is episode five, I think. If you want we can watch from the first one, I have it on Netflix.”

“No, this is fine,” Lena said, resting her cheek against the top of Kara’s head as the blonde leaned down onto Lena's shoulder. “I don’t exactly want to watch the whole six-part series tonight – it's more than ten hours altogether I think.”

“True, it’s pretty long,” Kara said. “At least this version is better than the movie they did a few years ago.”

“I didn’t mind that one actually,” Lena said, idly playing with a lock of Kara’s hair that was trailing down the hero's arm. “Although, I sort of had _maybe_ a bit of a crush on Keira Knightley ever since she was in King Arthur, so that might be why I liked it.”

Kara lifted her head up to peer curiously at the CEO. “You had a crush on Keira Knightley?”

Lena couldn’t read what Kara thought about her having a crush on the actress – normally the blonde was like an open book, but here her expression was strangely unreadable. Lena decided to keep talking to see if she could suss the other girl out. “Yeah, I mean she _is_ hot and also badass. Honestly, I’m surprised that everyone doesn’t have a crush on her.” Playing nonchalant about it, the CEO asked idly, “You mean to say you’ve never have a crush on her?”

“I … I don’t know?” Kara sighed, almost sounding frustrated. “I just … I don’t know, I’m so bad at figuring out my own feelings. I mean, I had this crush on James, and it wasn’t until everyone told me I should go for it that I even paid any attention to my own feelings, and then I kissed him and it was just,” she made a gesture, opening her hands into nothing and then dropping them again. “And then everything that happened with Mon-el ...,” she trailed off, sighing again, this time dejectedly.

Lena kept playing with the lock of Kara’s hair, incredibly curious about the blonde’s love life but not really sure if she wanted to get into that conversation right now, what with how delicate she was feeling. She opted instead to remember this for a later conversation and turned slightly so she was basically lying lengthwise down the couch with Kara pulled up against her chest, fingers threaded through Kara’s.

After a few minutes laying like that, Kara sighed again, contented, and Lena was amused that she had changed roles from receiving comfort to giving it – although she would be lying if she didn't admit that this felt extremely comforting for her, too. They got to the end of the episode and were waiting through the commercial break for the start of the next – it appeared to be some kind of Jane Austen marathon – when suddenly Kara looked up towards the door and sat up.

“Oh! The pizza guy,” getting up quickly and grabbing her purse. She was just about to reach for the door to open it when she turned back. “Wait, where are my glasses?” She searched around for a few moments before she spotted them on the kitchen island. Donning them, she opened up the door and stepped out into the hallway, pulling the door mostly shut behind her. Lena could still hear the conversation through the crack in the door.

“Frankie!” she greeted softly. “Hey, I’ve got someone resting on the couch and I don’t want to disturb them, so let’s keep this quiet.”

Lena could hear a voice rumble in response, who she guessed must be Frankie. Of course Kara would know the name of her pizza delivery guy.

Kara paid and came quietly back into the apartment with her load of boxes – Lena laid back down on the couch to play at sleeping just in case Frankie was still at the door – closing the door behind her and depositing the pizzas on the kitchen counter. Lena lifted herself up from the couch at the sound of the door closing, and looked back to see Kara glancing at the wall over the top of her glasses, seeming to see something there that Lena couldn’t – which Lena supposed the superhero probably was.

The blonde pushed her glasses back up on her nose in a gesture very familiar to Lena, and turned back towards the couch to say brightly, “Dinner is served.”

Lena pushed the blankets off herself to stand up and help Kara get plates and drinks. The CEO had forgotten about her tea and it had gotten cold – luckily she still liked chamomile tea cold – but Kara wanted more tea. Lena flipped open the box that Kara had indicated was hers – one mystery was solved, Kara had ended up getting her Hawaiian pizza with pepperoni and mushrooms. Smelling and looking at the fresh pizza made Lena finally start to feel a bit hungry so she grabbed a couple slices, joking about the four other boxes of pizza Kara had ordered.

“What, I’m hungry!” the blonde protested in defense. “Besides, Alex always comes over and eats it, and I want to have _some_ leftovers.”

Lena idly wondered just how much Kara had to spend to keep up with her superpowered appetite. It was something that Lena had of course noticed before – Lena thought that the reporter's unusually large appetite was probably something that _everyone_ knew about Kara – but the blonde had apparently toned down her eating around the CEO if she could eat four pizzas. Lena of course understood why. It was one thing to eat as much as a hungry teenager, it was quite another to order four pizzas for dinner and still pretend to not be an alien.


	4. The longest day (that ends with surprise cuddles)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG y'all this one night is so loooooooong and meandering and I don't know what to do with all of this. I didn't find any parts I wanted to cut because it was so cute and fluffy so I just threw it all together in this MASSIVE chapter. For those of you who feel the need to skip ahead I've put a summary at the end.
> 
> For everyone else, safety glasses on and buckle up.  
> \---------

After Kara left, Alex spent most of her time talking and coordinating between the various teams. As the NCPD started showing up to help them tape off the crime scene and record evidence, Alex noticed a familiar head of hair and jacket. The DEO agent's heart did a weird lurch as Maggie turned around and saw her. It was the first time since they had broken things off that she'd run into the detective in the field.

The NCPD detective looked back at her for a moment before coming over, but Alex couldn’t read the other woman’s expression.

“Hi,” Maggie greeted.

“Hey,” Alex replied, her voice sounding a bit higher than usual to her own ear, and she inwardly cringed.

The detective noticed the stiff response and wanted to try and relieve the awkwardness, so decided to try for some humor. “Are you going to tell me to get off your crime scene again?” Maggie quipped with a smirk, and with that the tension Alex had been feeling started to melt away.

“No, I learned my lesson,” the agent replied, shoulders relaxing. “Your teams are pretty good, and mine don’t really work with crime scenes that often.”

“You just come in, punch people, cause some minor property damage, and then run off? Is that it?” Maggie asked sardonically, one hand on a hip, eyes twinkling with amusement.

Alex finally smiled at that. “Pretty much. It’s more fun that way,” she quipped.

“And leave us with all the cleanup,” Maggie said, sighing theatrically with a mock frown on her face.

This actually made Alex laugh. “Did they give you the run-down on the perp yet?”

Maggie, seeing the other woman more relaxed now, took the hint from Alex and went into business mode, pulling out her notepad. “He kidnapped Lena Luthor?”

Alex’s eyes flickered and her expression went grim. “He was a hitman – he kidnapped Lena and brought her here then he made Lena call to get Supergirl. He- ... he wanted to kill Lena in front of Supergirl,” she finished in flat tones that, to someone who knew her well, spoke volumes about Alex’s anger.

Maggie was surprised. “How did he know they were that close?”

Agent Danvers shook her head. “I don’t know, something about Supergirl showing up to protect Lena when Morgan Edge was trying to have her killed or framed.”

The detective scribbled some notes on her pad. “Edge, huh? Didn’t he die in prison?”

“This was apparently his son? The hitman said ‘Edge Junior’.” Alex sighed. “And that’s probably all you can get from him for now because he’s unconscious and in serious condition at the hospital.” Agent Danvers glanced at the damage to the ramp and railing, and she continued wryly, “He apparently thought it would be a great idea to play with grenades.”

Maggie looked up from her pad and pursed her lips thoughtfully, glancing over at Alex. “I heard something about a certain team leader catching said grenade in mid-air and throwing it back at him.”

The agent gave a one-shoulder half-shrug. “My team’s alright, only one agent was hurt and she just has a mild concussion. She should be back on duty within a day or two.”

“Hmm,” said Maggie, probably having more opinions on the topic but she let it drop, instead going back over the case notes with Alex to get more details and confirm what she already had. “Well,” she said, flipping her notebook closed with a snap and sliding it into her jacket, “we can take the rest from here and you can get your teams home. I bet you’re all pretty tired.”

Alex nodded, rubbing a the back of a gloved hand across her face. “Yeah, I think we’re about done. Hopefully, there won’t be any alien invasions for the night.”

Looking at the agent with mild concern, the detective asked, “You have night duty tonight?”

“On-call duty,” Alex corrected, then sighed. “I don’t know. It depends on if Kara refuses to leave Lena’s side tonight. J'onn has the night off and it has to be one of us three.”

Maggie’s eyes sparkled and Alex knew that that meant a joke was imminent. “Agent Danvers,” she said, tone exaggeratedly impressed, “are you, a mere human, on the rotation with a literal superhero and a flying green martian?” She pressed a hand to her chest and gasped facetiously. “And they say humans can’t cut it against aliens.”

Alex’s lips twitched up, trying not to grin, but her eyes sparkled too. “I mean, I use a full team of trained agents rather than breaking through a concrete wall to fight solo,” she said, rolling her shoulders. “Technically though, I _do_ have a supersuit now,” the agent added, her face finally breaking out into a grin, “and a lot of cool tech to play with, so I can’t let Supergirl have all the fun now, can I?”

“Well, just don’t forget about your friendly boys, girls, and enbies in blue – we want to play with the new tech, too.”

Agent Danvers winced. “I have no idea how cross-agency dispersion of equipment works, although since you’re in the Science Division maybe that should help?” Alex blinked at thought then, and looked at Maggie curiously. “Speaking of that, why did you get called in here? This guy’s human, as far as I know.”

“That grenade he threw,” Maggie replied. “If it’s higher level tech than what we normally see, they dump it on us.”

“Yeah, that thing packed a punch and it was tiny – not a traditional explosive either, it was like one of these alien tech energy weapons we have.”

Maggie nodded. “Yeah, it must be some kind of experimental tech – I’ve got some people on it, but my gut says that it’s going to be something either from Edge or their subsidiaries, or old Lex-era LuthorCorp tech.” She paused to frown. “I bet they’d think it was amusing to kill a Luthor using Luthor tech,” she said grimly.

“Ma’am.”

The two women turned around to see an NCPD examiner standing next to them. The examiner looked glanced quickly between the two – everyone on the force knew that Sawyer had been engaged to the FBI agent, and that the detective had been ... off since the break-up. No one knew exactly what had happened, but even the more homophobic in the department had to admit that the relationship with Agent Danvers had been good for Maggie. The detective had been almost singularly driven before the breakup, wrapping up cases and finding clues like they were somehow standing in between her and her fiance, not to mention incredibly emotionally stable and happy. Examiner Tahir would rather not interrupt them right now while the two were catching up but she really wanted to get this done so they could all get home. Tahir took a quick breath.

“Sorry to interrupt, ma’am, but we checked out this phone and it had no recoverable prints except the victims, or any other evidence on it, and we think it belongs to Ms. Luthor.” She directed her words to Detective Sawyer but held out the phone to Agent Danvers, and the agent took it. “We took photos of front and back and noted where it was in the crime scene, but Arnolds thinks Ms. Luthor can have it back now and we'll just ask to see it again if we have any other questions.” The last part seemed to be a question directed at Maggie.

“That’s fine,” the detective said. “Lord knows we’ve got plenty of other stuff to go on, and I'm sure Ms. Luthor would probably like to get in contact with friends and fam– well, people she trusts, to let them know she’s ok.” The examiner nodded and walked off.

“Well,” Maggie said, turning back to Alex, “I should let you get going.” Alex nodded, and Maggie turned to walked away.

“Maggie,” Alex said, stopping her.

The detective turned back, curious.

After a beat, Alex finally said earnestly, exhaling, “It was good to see you again.”

Maggie’s shoulders relaxed, replying in the same tone, “It was good to see you, too.” The detective smiled softly at Alex, before the expression morphed into a smirk. “Now get outta my crime scene before you mess something up.”

Alex laughed again. “Yeah, yeah,” she said signaling to her team that it was time to go. The agent called back over her shoulder, “G’night Mags.”

“Night Danvers.”

\----

Lena and Kara carried their pizza and drinks back to the couch and sat down to finish watching episode six of Pride and Prejudice, although they spent a lot less time talking this time around. The two were mostly through eating when a cell ring tone sounded.

“Oh,” said Kara, setting her plate down and standing up, “that’s Alex’s ringtone.” She turned her head around, scanning the room until she pinpointed the sound and went into the bedroom to grab her phone.

“Hey Alex, what’s up? … Yes, we’re still up, we’re eating … hey what, we were hungry!” she answered in response to Alex’s question. “Ok fine, _I_ was hungry, but Lena hadn’t eaten either, so … yeah, that’s fine, you can have the couch … yeah … no … ok, yeah, we’ll be up. Ride safe, ok? Love you, bye.”

“Well,” Kara said, hanging up her phone, “it’s a good thing I got extra pizza because Alex is on her way over.” She set her phone down on the coffee table and plopped back down next to Lena on the couch. “We’d better eat up before she gets here,” she grinned at Lena, before taking her own advice and digging in.

“Kara,” Lena said with a light laugh, “I’m pretty sure I’m not going to finish even half that pizza.”

“Mmm,” Kara hummed, mouth full, before swallowing to say, “just remember to save room for ice cream.”

Lena turned to look at Kara in surprise. “Kara … are you really going to eat pizza _and_ ice cream at–” she looked at the clock, “–two in the morning??”

“Hey,” she replied, mouth half-full, “I burn a lot of calories in a day, I need the energy intake.”

The CEO shook her head in disbelief. “If I ate like you did, I’d weigh 400 pounds.”

Kara snorted. “Maybe, but you’d still be beautiful so what does it matter?” she said honestly.

This time it was Lena blushing furiously at something Kara said – the blonde hero congratulated herself internally on finally managing to turn the tables on the other woman for once.

“I didn’t know you were such a charmer,” Lena said, trying to recover her smoothness. “I’m going to have to keep my eye on you,” she said, putting her words to action and pinning Kara with a look that the blonde just knew meant trouble.

Kara half-choked on her pizza, blushing, realizing that the tables did not actually stay turned.

Finishing off their pizza with some light banter – mostly Lena making Kara blush – they went to the kitchen to clean things up before Alex got there.

“Are you getting sleepy at all?” Kara asked as she dug into the freezer for the ice cream.

Lena leaned against the counter and thought about it. She was exhausted, yes – she had been tired even before leaving work that night – but it also felt like she was still buzzing a little inside, and Lena guessed that she probably wouldn’t be able to fall asleep if she laid down right now, so that’s what she told Kara.

The blonde nodded at this as if it was something she expected, saying, “Well, we could just sit on the couch watching Jane Austen until you get sleepy enough to go to bed. Alex can fall asleep wherever and whenever, so she won’t be bothered by the tv being on.”

Lena turned to look at Kara curiously. “Why is she coming over, by the way? Did she need someone to talk to?” Lena asked with some concern, remembering what Kara had mentioned earlier about not being able to settle down after fighting. She guessed the same might be true of the blonde hero's sister.

Kara snorted. “She probably is just coming over to steal more of my pizza,” she complained half-heartedly, pulling out a large tub out of the freezer – the label on the side declaring it strawberry cheesecake swirl ice cream. “You suuuuure you don’t want any ice cream?” Kara asked coyly, wiggling both her eyebrows and the tub of ice cream in what she probably thought was an enticing manner.

Lena laughed in delight. “Oh my god, Kara,” she said, “I’ll just have a couple bites of yours, but please don’t scoop any out for me.”

“Suit yourself,” the blonde replied with a shrug, pulling down a bowl and two spoons before scooping up a – yes, an unconscionable amount of ice cream into the bowl. Kara wrestled the tub back into the freezer with a thud.

There was a knock at the door, and Kara looked up brightly and said, “Alex!” just as the agent opened the door and let herself in. Kara bounced over and gave her sister a hug.

“Hey,” the elder Danvers said by way of greeting, sounding tired.

“Agent Danvers,” Lena said. She wasn’t all that close with the gruff and somewhat belligerent agent so the CEO wasn’t sure if she should call Alex by her first name, although she tried to make her voice sound friendly and welcoming.

“Just Alex is fine,” Alex said with a tired but mostly genuine smile, “or I’ll start calling you Ms. Luthor.”

Kara chuckled at that. “Well, 'Just Alex', would you like the Kara Special or the Lena Special?”

The agent rolled her eyes in response. “Isn’t the Kara special just ice cream?” she asked, glancing over at the large and very full bowl of ice cream, before opening the top box of pizza and grabbing a slice.

Kara huffed. “That’s the Kara Special _dessert_ ,” she corrected. “I meant pizza.”

“The Lena Special is pineapple, mushrooms, canadian bacon, and pepperoni?” Alex asked with a raised eyebrow, looking through the other boxes. She looked over at Lena. “Huh, I wouldn’t have expected that.”

Now it was Lena’s turn to huff. “I thought I was giving topping options honestly – I didn’t think she’d put them all on one pizza.”

“Then you don’t know how Kara likes pizza,” Alex said, chuckling. Kara made an indignant sound, but she had her mouth full of spoon and ice cream so couldn’t respond.

“Apparently not,” Lena conceded with a smirk. “Although, I have to admit the Lena Special is a unexpectedly tasty combination.”

Kara finished swallowing her overlarge bite of ice cream, and said, “See?? Don’t mess with my culinary genius.” She waved an admonishing spoon at both of them. “Now come on, or we’re going to miss Pride and Prejudice,” she said around another spoonful of ice cream while walking back to the couch. Lena picked up her mug of tea and trailed after her.

“Pride and Prejudice? Really?” Alex asked, lifting an unimpressed eyebrow at the tv.

Kara swallowed another mouthful of ice cream to respond. “Yeah, it’s some kind of Jane Austen marathon – I think Sense and Sensibility is next.”

“Well,” said the agent, picking up her collection of different flavors of pizza and following the other two to the couch, “at least we won’t have to worry about this show keeping us up tonight.”

Kara plopped herself down right in the middle of the couch, Lena sitting down against the far end, so Alex grabbed the end closest to the tv. Lena, the only person whose hands weren’t already occupied once she set her drink on the table, pulled the blanket out and laid it over the three of them. The CEO then took the opportunity to snuggle against Kara, wrapping both arms around the blonde’s upper arm, leaving the hero still free to hold her ice cream bowl with her other arm. Kara for her part, sighed softly and leaned into Lena.

Alex didn’t notice their interactions at first, splitting her attention between her pizza and the show on tv – she really was watching it, despite her previous complaints. It wasn’t until Kara started trying to feed Lena spoonfuls of ice cream that the elder Danvers started paying attention to the other end of the couch.

Lena sighed. “Ok, but don’t you think I’m helping you finish all that, Kara,” she said, accepting the mouthful of ice cream with a noise of appreciation.

Alex glanced over at them then, and only her years of keeping her calm in difficult situations kept her from sucking her breath sharply in surprise and possibly inhaling her pizza. The two looked _so couple-y_.

Kara looked smug. “It’s good though, isn’t it?” She was looking at Lena, and hadn’t noticed anything about her sister yet.

“It is,” Lena agreed, and rested her head back down on Kara’s shoulder.

Alex turned herself more forward and not angled so much towards the tv so she could continue to observe them out of the corner of her eye, just making it seem like she was focusing more on her pizza.

After a few more bites of ice cream for herself, Kara reached over to give Lena some more. The dark-haired woman sighed again and accepted the bite, before putting her head back down. The third time though, Lena started shaking her head, rejecting the offers, but Kara nevertheless continued to offer them every few bites. After the fourth headshake refusal, Kara became more insistent.

“Come on Lena,” she said, wiggling the spoon near Lena’s face. “You know you want some more ice cream. It’s _ice cream_ ,” she said emphatically, as if that somehow explained everything.

Lena exhaled in exasperation. “I’m going to gain weight being around you, aren’t I?” she asked rhetorically, pinning Kara with glare.

Kara was however in no way deterred and she continued moving the spoon closer to Lena’s mouth, until Lena decided she probably wasn’t going to win this battle and opened her mouth to accept the bite, though otherwise not changing her expression at all. Kara gleefully gave Lena her bite of ice cream, seeming not at all intimidated by the persistence of the CEO’s glare.

Alex couldn’t take it anymore, and burst out laughing, almost choking on the bite of pizza in her mouth before she could swallow it. Lena and Kara turned to stare at the elder Danvers as she had to put her pizza down and hold onto the edge of the coffee table so she wouldn’t fall over from laughing.

“Oh my god you guys!” the agent gasped between bouts of laughter. “The look on Lena’s face, and you’re just– Kara looking like she’s so proud of making you eat ice cream– and you’re _glaring_ at her but also chewing on your ice cream, oh my god!” Alex started wiping the tears from her eyes with one hand, still laughing.

Kara wasn’t sure if she should be laughing or angry at the outburst and her expression clearly showed that. Lena however, was still glaring of course, so Alex definitely knew what the CEO thought about the laughter. The agent had already guessed that it was a mock glare though, once the youngest Luthor had accepted ice cream from Kara with that same look on her face. If the agent hadn’t seen that interaction first though, she would have been taken in by the CEO’s glare – it was a damn good glare after all.

Alex was slowly coming down, still laughing lightly. “Oh, that was the best, I wish I had that on video, oh man.” After chortling a bit longer, she seemed to finally be calming down, still occasionally wiping at her eyes. “Oh damn, I gotta tell Maggie about that – I think she’d appreciate it.”

Kara’s expression immediately turned serious, and her attention snapped to her sister. “Maggie?” she asked. “Did you run into her?”

Alex cleared her expression and her laughter stopped instantly, realizing what she’d said too late. After a beat, the agent sighed and her shoulders slumped. “Yeah, I ran into her after you both left – we called the NCPD to take over the crime scene since this had nothing to do with aliens and so was technically their jurisdiction.”

“And? How did it go?” Kara asked with gentle probing. She turned to Lena with an aside, who was looking between Kara and Alex with a mix of concern and confusion. “Maggie is Alex’s ex-fiance,” Kara clarified in a low voice.

Alex grunted. She took another couple bites of pizza before answering. “It was fine – I hadn’t realized they’d sent their Science Division out to us since the suspect is human.” Alex’s expression softened almost imperceptibly. “She was her usual self and it wasn’t too awkward, so yeah, it was fine.”

Kara put her hand on her sister’s shoulder and squeezed gently.

“I’m sorry to hear about you breaking up,” Lena said, with genuine sympathy in her voice. After a moment, she asked, “If you don’t mind my asking … why did you break off the engagement?”

Alex swallowed another bite of her pizza. “I wanted kids, she didn’t,” she said simply. She shrugged, as if it didn’t really bother her, but Lena could guess that it did. “We want different things in life.” The agent tried to stay nonchalant.

Lena inhaled sharply at the mention of wanting kids, although it was quiet – if Alex hadn’t been quiet herself at that second she would have missed it. The agent could guess that Kara, being the human puppy that she was, would probably be the sort of person that would want kids. Also if Alex wasn’t misreading the signs Lena was probably interested in being together with Kara, and so that naturally meant that Lena might need to have a similar talk at some point about potentially being ok with having kids.

Although Alex was still basically a baby gay, she was pretty sure that most women didn’t cuddle the way that the youngest Luthor and her sister were unless it was with their lover or someone who they wanted to be their lover – except Kara, Alex corrected herself internally, but Kara was _Kara_. Even there, Alex had wondered before if her baby sister maybe swung that way, especially with the blonde's near-hero worship of Cat Grant. Tonight was just more evidence.

Despite Alex's own internal hesitance about anyone getting close to Kara and refusal to trust anyone with the last name Luthor, even she could see that the two complemented each other well and that they genuinely seemed to care for one another. So, in a decision that she might later come to regret, Alex decided to help out and do her baby sister a solid.

“How do _you_ feel about kids, Lena?” asking the question right back in a hopefully neutral tone.

Lena blinked in surprise, but then she recovered her equilibrium and fixed Agent Danvers with a look, just the hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. “Are you propositioning me, Agent Danvers?” she asked archly.

Alex spluttered in a way that was very reminiscent of Kara, and Lena had a hard time keeping herself from giggling. For her part, Kara had her eyes wide and was looking confusedly between her sister and her– … friend who was wrapped around her arm.

Lena decided to give both of them a break. “While the offer is flattering,” she said, in the same tones, “I am emotionally unavailable at present, so no.”

Alex relaxed noticeably, and then gave Lena a sardonic look. “I noticed,” she said, gaze flickering to Kara for just the barest instant. Lena blushed a bright red.

Poor Kara was still looking at Lena, frowning in confusion, and hadn’t seen Alex’s non-verbal suggestion at all. She asked, puzzled, “What does emotionally unavailable mean?”

Lena flushed even darker. “Um.” The CEO did _not_ want to dive into that tonight.

Alex shrugged, and said casually, ignoring the daggers that Lena was shooting at her with her eyes, “It usually means someone isn’t ready for a relationship yet, for whatever reason.”

“Oh,” said Kara, but she was only partly mollified. “But … why–”

Quickly Lena interrupted her, saying, “Please, Kara,” leaning her head back over the back of the couch, eyes closed, “not tonight.”

Both Alex and Kara looked sheepish. “Sorry,” Kara said with a wince.

“It’s alright, I just … not tonight.”

“Ok,” both Alex and Kara agreed.

Kara quickly ate the rest of her ice cream – it had started to melt – and then stood up. “Speaking of bed, let me get you some pj's Alex,” she said decisively, already walking towards the bedroom.

“Kara, it’s ok,” Alex said, turning back to her pizza to finish it off. “I’m on-call tonight.”

Her little sister stopped midway across the room and put her hands on her hips, huffing as she turned around. “What? J'onn isn’t covering tonight?”

“Nope,” Alex said, “it’s either me or you – J'onn has the night off, he has family stuff to deal with. But we’re both here, so if something happens we can decide which one of us goes and the other can stay with Lena.”

Lena directed an assessing look at Alex, suddenly making the connection that that was why the agent had offered to come over. Not that Lena wasn't grateful – she definitely was.

Kara harrumphed half-heartedly. “Well, at least put sleep clothes on– no, Alex,” she said, overriding her older sister’s attempts at protest, “you'll sleep better out of your work clothes and it doesn't actually save you all that much time when you're getting ready.”

Alex muttered something unintelligible under her breath. “Fine.”

Kara grinned triumphantly and bounded off to the bedroom.

Lena picked up her tea mug and Kara's empty ice cream bowl and walked them into the kitchen, washing them out quickly in the sink. She also grabbed Kara's empty mug and gave it the same treatment, before staring pensively at what Lena considered a mountain of remaining pizza, trying to decide what to do about it.

“You can just leave those out, Lena,” Alex called over to her, noticing where the CEO was looking. “It’s not like pizza lasts in this house anyway.”

Lena snorted. “No, I guess not. But I shouldn’t, I don’t know, put it in baggies and put it in the fridge? Then it won’t get stale.”

“Lena Luthor,” Kara said in genuine shock, standing at a dead stop after emerging from the bedroom with bedding and pajamas for Alex, “does pizza _go stale_ in your house?” The blonde looked positively offended and Lena couldn’t help but giggle, though trying to hide it behind her hand.

Successfully squelching her laughter, Lena continued perfectly deadpan, “I guess I’ll have to call in the cavalry the next time I have leftover pizza – we wouldn’t want to have another stale pizza incident.”

Kara made a noise that was something between a squeak and a huff of exasperation.

Alex was again having a hell of a time keeping a straight face at all of this – dammit, she was starting to see why Kara liked Lena so much, against the agent's better judgement – and if she snickered a little, well, she was up against overwhelming odds.

Kara sniffed at Alex’s snicker and came over to shoo her big sister off the couch so she could make the bed up. Alex got up to wash off her plate instead, joining Lena in the kitchen area, where she was sitting at the island.

“Oh, I almost forgot, I got your phone back from the crime scene,” Alex said, pulling the device out of her pocket to hand to Lena.

Lena looked down at the device and a shadow seemed to cross over her face, and suddenly Alex could have hit herself for forgetting. The agent swore under her breath.

In a blink of the eye, Kara was at Lena’s side – the superhero must have heard the CEO’s heart rate change. “Hey,” the younger Danvers said softly, putting a hand on Lena’s shoulder very gently, “we can just use my phone to set an alarm. Also, I’ve got Jess’ number in here, so you can send her a message – then she won’t have a heart attack when she hears the news but hasn’t heard from you.”

Lena seemed to snap out of her fugue at the mention of a task that she needed to do. “Yes, Jess, right,” she said, straightening her shoulders. “I should call her.”

"Isn't it kind of late?" Kara asked. "Wouldn't texting her be better?"

“No,” Lena said, almost smiling, “the last time I got abducted or something and only left her a terse text message, she called me at 4am to demand a full and complete debriefing.”

They all turned to look at the clock – it was quarter to four.

“Well,” Alex said with a grin, “it’s just about Jess o’clock then.”

Kara said, “How is she even up at that time? She works your hours, she must be exhausted.” She put her hands on her hips, exasperated – Lena couldn’t tell if the emotion was directed at the CEO or Jess, or both. Probably both.

Lena picked up Kara’s phone and pulled up Jess’ number. She went to put the phone to her ear, and instead decided to put it on speakerphone on the table instead.

“Hello?” an extremely sleepy Jess voice said into the phone.

“Jess, I’m sorry to call you this late- err, early?” Lena started.

“Ms. Luthor?” Jess sounded suddenly more awake. “Why are you calling me at 4am from Ms. Danvers’ phone?”

After a short time explaining the situation – with Kara draped over the CEO’s shoulders and rubbing up and down her arms – Jess all but interrogated her boss for more details. It sounded to Alex like Lena's assistant was preparing to do all-out corporate warfare in retaliation for the attack on her boss, although admittedly the DEO agent wasn’t particularly well-versed in that kind of war. Eventually Lena stepped in.

“Jess,” the CEO said simply.

A beat pause. “Yes, Ms. Luthor?” Jess’ voice was completely expressionless. Alex was impressed.

“You may do some extra research tomorrow to look into this, but since you’re working in the middle of the night, you’re not allowed to do any work or even come into the office till 9am. Is that clear?” Lena’s voice brooked no argument.

“Ms. Luthor,” Jess said, exasperated, “you have meetings at 10am, and if I’m to reschedule them--”

“Ok, 8am, but not one second before.”

“Yes, Ms. Luthor.” Her voice was perfectly businesslike again. “Should I be using Ms. Danvers’ number to contact you?”

Lena paused for a moment, then said, “For now, yes, although I should have other arrangements working relatively shortly.” She considered then, looking over at Alex. “Do you have Agent Danvers’ number as well?”

“Her sister?” There was some rustling in the background. “Yes, I’ve got it here.”

Alex’s eyebrows raised to her hairline. She couldn’t remember giving out her number to Lena Luthor’s assistant and she was sure she would have remembered that.

“Alright, you should be able to contact me through either of them for the immediate future, but try Kara’s number first.”

“Yes, Ms. Luthor.”

After that they said goodnight, and Lena ended the call.

“How does she have my number?” Alex asked, still surprised by that.

"Oh, please," Kara said to the surprise of both Alex and Lena, giving her sister a look. “She’s the personal assistant to the CEO of one of the largest and most influential companies in the world. Of _course_ , she's got the phone numbers for all kinds of people her boss has interacted with or might need to contact.” She shook her head. “As Cat Grant’s assistant, I had personal numbers for all kinds of high profile people, from Beyoncé to the President. Getting your number Alex, even if you _are_ the assistant director of a secret government agency, would be easy for her.”

Alex pinned her sister with a shrewd look. “So _you_ gave her my number?”

Kara suddenly looked a whole lot less confident. “Uh ….”

\----

The three finally got bedding and sleep clothes figured out, and put all the food away, or what was left of it.

"So," Lena said, putting the last dish away in the cupboard, "if Alex has the couch, where am I sleeping?"

"Uh." Kara hesitated, and then started wringing her hands awkwardly, staring at the floor. "Well ... I thought since you had a rough day, you might want to sleep with someone else next to you so you don't wake up with nightmares or anything, so I was thinking you might want to sleep in the bed with me," Kara finished, finally lifting her eyes to see how the CEO might take this.

Lena stood stock-still, hand still half-lifted towards the cupboard from putting away the dish. Then she turned to look at the blonde. "Kara," she began.

Kara hurriedly rushed to fill the pause. "Well I mean just if you want to, I can sleep anywhere and so I can leave the bed to you if you want--"

Lena strode the few steps over to put a hand over Kara's lips and stop the word salad streaming out of the superhero's mouth. "Kara," she said, a half-smile on her face, "I'm fine with it and I think it's incredibly sweet of you."

"You do??" Kara asked intently, pulling Lena's hand down with one of her own to leave her mouth free. Her eyes searched Lena's face as if checking to make sure the shorter woman was sure.

"Yes," Lena said. She glanced down at the hand that Kara was still holding onto. "I just ... I've never had someone offer to do that for me before, and I wasn't sure what to think for a second there." When Kara opened her mouth to say something, Lena hurried onward. "That's not to say I don't want that or don't think it will help – I do – I just was surprised, that's all."

"Oh," said Kara, then she smiled. "Ok then, you've already got your pajamas, but let me get you a spare toothbrush. I'm pretty sure I have a bunch of extras under the sink." The blonde walked off to the bathroom and started digging around in the cupboard. Lena followed after her.

"Here we go," the hero said, setting one out on the counter. "I've actually got two types of toothpaste because I accidentally bought the wrong one and Alex hated it so much that she brought over a different one." She pointed out the two, reassuring Lena that she was free to use whatever she wanted. Kara then took the opportunity to start brushing her teeth since they were already there, and Lena followed suit.

When they finished, Alex showed up for her turn, already changed into her pajamas.

"Skooch," Alex said, pushing Kara over with a hip and picking up her toothpaste and toothbrush. The blonde rolled her eyes and went back out to the bedroom. Lena started to follow Kara out but then paused and looked over at the agent.

"Alex," she started, "I don't know if you came over just for me, but I just wanted to say that I appreciate having you here – the ... I don't know, interactions between you two are really helping me feel normal, like everything can be ok. Like it _is_ ok."

The DEO agent looked at her for a moment, before spitting a mouthful of toothpaste into the sink to clear her mouth. "It was nothing, don't mention it," she said, waving off Lena's concerns. "Besides spending time with Kara is good for me too. Speaking of which, she's waiting for you, so git." Alex lightheartedly made as if she were going to prod the CEO with her still-toothpaste covered toothbrush, so Lena gave her a half-smile and let herself out of the bathroom.

Kara was just sitting down on the far side of the bed when Lena came out. "I set out a glass of water for you in case you want it." She gestured to the end table on Lena's side of the bed.

"Oh, thank you."

Lena sat down on the bed – the covers had already been pulled back. Kara tucked her legs in and then scooted over so she was on her side facing Lena, and then looked up at her.

"So how do you want to do this?" she asked, looking at Lena with a curious expression on her face.

Lena's mind completely froze – and then seemed to only go into dirty places, which she was fairly certain Kara hadn't meant. She wouldn't mean that. Right? Not that that wasn't something that Lena wanted, but Kara's older sister was right next to them in an open-plan apartment so there would be no walls separating them on an already overwhelming day.

"Uh ...."

Kara tilted her head to one side. "Do you want to be the big spoon or the little spoon? Or maybe no cuddling? Or like holding hands?"

Lena exhaled in relief. "Oh," she said, tucking her legs in and leaning back on the pillow. "I guess ...." Lena thought for a minute. She would feel most comfortable with someone wrapped around her with her as the little spoon, but the thought of someone behind her right now put Lena somewhat on edge. "Can ... we try me as big spoon first and then see how it goes?" she asked.

Kara smiled at her reassuringly. "Yeah, that's fine."

Alex finished up in the bathroom and started turning out the lights as Lena moved over to Kara and, very tentatively, wrapped an arm around the taller woman's waist. When the lights went mostly down – but not all the way off, which Lena was thankful for – she scooted even closer until it felt like she was hugging Kara from behind, pressed up against the hero's surprisingly warm body.

It was a strange combination of arousing and comforting, like Lena wasn't sure which one she should be feeling – but it wasn't fear, and the youngest Luthor didn't think it would keep her awake once she got used to it so Lena wasn't too worried. Although she didn't feel up to trying anything further tonight, she hoped she could get a repeat of this at some future point when she was more able to enjoy it fully.

Kara snuggled backwards into the CEO and sighed contentedly, causing Lena to smile widely, the CEO not bothering to hide her expression since no one could see it.

"Good night, Kara."

Kara could have sworn she heard the sound of a smile in Lena's voice – and a big smile at that – but she didn't want to roll over to look at the other woman when she was so comfortable with Lena holding her like this. The blonde hero wasn't happy with the events of the day that lead up to this point, but she was more than happy that this was the day's end point. Kara was ecstatic even and she felt like she should be buzzing, but she knew Lena needed to sleep so she forced herself to stay calm.

Even with her desire to stay calm, Kara couldn't help the slow smile spreading across her face. "Good night, Lena." She closed her eyes, still smiling, and tried listening to the heartbeat behind her starting to slow as a way of calming herself down – that and the arm and body pressed up against her. Kara sighed again, and found herself quickly drifting off to sleep.

For Lena it took a little bit longer. She could hear the sounds of Alex shifting around out in the living room, and the regular movement of Kara's breathing under her arm, and the combination made it feel like she was protected – not to mention that the two people she was with were either an elite secret agent or a literal superhero. More comforting to her, surprisingly, was the warmth of being with two people who seemed to genuinely care about her welfare and needs. With those thoughts still in her head, the youngest Luthor drifted off to sleep.

\----

Although the situation was as comfortable as Lena could have hoped, it didn't entirely stave off the nightmares. She snapped her eyes open in panic later in the night, breathing irregular and heart beating almost painfully fast, halfway lifting herself off the bed. The sight of the sleeping woman in front of her helped remind Lena where she was and she rolled away on to her back, trying to get control of her racing heart, breathing deeply with one hand clutching at her chest. The other seemed to be trapped under Kara, but for now she left it where it was, the weight a reminder of the hero's presence while Lena gave herself some space to calm down.

After a few moments she was able to hear things other than her own heartbeat pounding in her ears and gasping breaths – and she noticed that Alex was snoring softly in the front room. The idea struck her as ridiculous and in her emotional precariousness she started to laugh a little, muffling the sound as much as she could. Kara must have heard though, because the hero shifted and muttered in her sleep, causing Lena to watch her intently, quieting her breathing even more.

When Kara didn't seem to do anything else, Lena relaxed again, noticing that her throat was now really dry after all that gasping. She looked over at the blonde still trapping her hand. After arguing with herself over whether she _really_ needed a drink of water right now or not, the CEO worked to slowly extricate her hand, hoping she wouldn't wake Kara up. The hero didn't do anything else but grunt when Lena freed herself so she felt safe to roll over for a drink. She figured she might as well go to the bathroom, so she went in, softly closing the door behind her and then washing away the sweat on her face with a few handfuls of water.

It made her feel refreshed and cleaned away the last traces of her dream, and she patted her face dry on the towel hanging on the door – it comfortingly smelled like Kara. Once she was done, she turned out the light and went back out. In the darkness she heard more shifting from the front room.

"Lena?" Alex whispered sleepily. "Are you ok?"

Lena stepped over to the edge of the barrier with the living room. "Yeah, I'm fine now, thanks. I just wanted to wash my face off."

Alex rubbed a hand over her face groggily. "Alright, let me or Kara know if you need a hug, ok?"

Lena smiled at her. "I will." They both muttered their goodnights and Lena went to lay back down in bed. She tried to slide in without shaking the bed too much, but as soon as she had slid her legs in and laid back against the pillow, Kara muttered again and rolled over towards the CEO. Lena held herself still, trying to keep from waking the blonde up more, but asleep-Kara had different ideas and the superhero scooted all the way over to Lena.

The still-sleeping hero wrapped an arm around Lena's stomach and pulled the shorter woman across the bed to her, then tucked her head into Lena's shoulder. The CEO had instinctively held her arm up out of the way when she was dragged across the bed, and so once Kara stopped moving and Lena lowered it down it rested perfectly over Kara's back, the youngest Luthor's hand automatically rubbing circles into the small of the hero's back. Kara hummed contentedly in her sleep, and nuzzled closer into Lena. Specifically, Kara nuzzled into the part of Lena's body that happened to be right in front of the hero's face.

Which happened to be Lena's chest.

Lena blinked, hardly daring to breathe. Kara – _Kara fucking Danvers_ – was nuzzling – yes, nuzzling – into the side of Lena's breast in her sleep. She didn't know if she was going to swoon or panic. Somehow the youngest Luthor managed to do neither, and once she got over the shock of it she realized that this was a fantastic and incredibly comforting position to sleep.

It took her a little bit longer to fall asleep this time – especially since she soon learned that Kara was occasionally kneading her hands into Lena's side as the hero slept, one on either side of Lena. Once she got used to that though it was incredibly comforting, and her sleepiness was able to eventually overcome the pricks of arousal that came with it and Lena fell back into slumber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TL;DR -
> 
> Fluff, no just seriously so much fluff.
> 
> Maggie and Alex have a slightly awkward reunion after breaking off their engagement, but smoothly transition to being friendly again. Kara and Lena watch part of a Jane Austen marathon and are super cute and Alex laughs at them. Also, Alex is a supportive bro to Lena. And SURPRISE UNEXPECTED CUDDLES FOR LENA.
> 
> Wow, when I put it that way, this chapter really does seem like all fluff, doesn't it?


	5. Jess will make note of it for the future

Alex Danvers' shoulders tightened almost imperceptibly as she stepped through the door into the NCPD Central Station. She got a couple hostile looks as she approached the front desk from people who recognized her, but she ignored them and stated her purpose so she could get directed back to Sawyer's desk. She hadn't come in that often to the station while she and Maggie were together, but there were several cops and detectives there that she recognized and that obviously knew who she was.

When she finally got back to Maggie's desk, she found the detective digging through a case file so intently that the shorter woman didn't even notice Alex until the DEO agent was practically at her desk. Once Maggie had finally looked up, the honestly pleased smile that Sawyer gave Alex was enough to make Alex's heart clench painfully, but the agent stoically kept her expression staid and professional – although she couldn't say it didn't hurt.

"Sawyer," Alex said with a small smile, trying for the same casual friendliness that Maggie had used the last time they'd spoken, though not really sure if she'd pulled it off. "You said you had something?"

"Yeah," Maggie said, closing her case file and dropping it onto the pile on her desk. "That energy grenade the perp had? Well, it turns I was simultaneously right with both my guesses," the detective said, gesturing to a chair for Alex while she pulled another case file out of her desk drawer. "Morgan Edge had purchased a subsidiary company that used to be part of LuthorCorp before the change in CEO, and the grenade was one of the projects they were developing. Of course, like most of the old LuthorCorp tech it was original based on modified alien technology."

"Huh," Alex said, impressed by her ex's detective skills yet again but trying to remain professional. "Do you have a lead on Edge Jr. yet?"

"No," Detective Sawyer said in a frustrated tone, flipping to the relevant pages from her case file and laying them out on her desk for the DEO agent to see. "Morgan Edge wasn't even married or in a relationship and as far as we can tell he didn't have kids. Also the suspect is still unconscious and so we can't question him yet either."

"Must be a protoge then. Who's taken over as CEO?"

"Edge's rival on the board of directors – and we checked and found that basically everyone in the company knows the two are rivals and they've been fighting over nearly everything for years, so it doesn't look like the rivalry was manufactured to protect the new CEO," Maggie said with a sigh. She looked over at her ex-fiance and was suddenly caught – Alex had her 'game face' on, staring into the middle distance and actively tackling the problem in her head. The detective's chest squeezed as she watched this beautiful and incredible agent thinking, and Maggie had a gut feeling that whatever was about to come out of Alex's mouth would be critical to the success of this case.

"Whoever it is is hiding, right? They know that they have a target on their back since they just tried and failed to kill Lena Luthor, so they have to just keep their mouth shut and their head down if any investigators come by. But what if you're _not_ investigating the Lena Luthor case?" Alex asked intently, leaning forward with one hand on the detective's desk – Maggie's attention was so riveted on the agent that she couldn't look away, even if she'd wanted to. "Edge Jr. is obviously upset about his dad or mentor dying, so what if we gave him an investigation he _wanted_ to participate in?"

Sawyer was so fixated on staring at Alex Danvers in her intense crime-fighting mode that the almost missed the agent's question. "What do you mean?" Maggie asked, and mentally thanked all the gods in the universe that her voice didn't sound breathless, which was how she felt right then.

Danvers gave the detective a cunning smile. "You need someone investigating the death of Morgan Edge. That would be perfect bait to draw out someone who wants vengeance on his killer."

Maggie shook herself from her partial daze to consider the idea. "Two things; one, it's not my case, or even a case in this department, and two, I'm pretty sure that case is basically already closed."

"Well, if it's closed, then no one would worry much about you asking to see it, right?"

Maggie considered briefly, saying, "Hmm, well I can try it." She got on the phone and dialed up the precinct office with jurisdiction over the prison where Edge had been killed. The assigned detective was surprisingly helpful, offering to send over what he had by email, and within ten minutes she and Alex were looking through the case files.

Alex was still in mental attack mode and Maggie didn't think the other woman had yet noticed just how much she was affecting the detective. Right then the agent was standing just behind and slightly to the side of Sawyer's desk chair, with one had gripping the back of the seat as Alex stared intensely over Maggie's shoulder at her computer screen. Just having Alex there helping with her case, comfortably at Maggie's side like nothing had gone wrong between them, was making the detective feel simultaneously elated and depressed – because Alex wasn't hers anymore, even as much as Maggie might want her to still be.

Agent Danvers, still totally unaware of her ex-fiance's internal struggles, leaned forward to put her hand not gripping the chair on Maggie's desk. "Who was helpful to the investigation? Who gave tips? Who called up to angrily complain when they found out the investigation had been closed?"

Just then Alex's phone beeped and she straightened up to pull it out of her pocket, checking the messages. "Damn, that's work – I gotta go." She turned to look at Sawyer, opening her mouth to apologize for having to run off, then she took in Maggie's expression and body language and swallowed hard. She and the detective had been together long enough that Alex knew all of Maggie's looks and could usually tell when Sawyer was hiding something – although maybe not always right away with the detective's damn good poker face. Right now though Alex could tell that Maggie was incredibly, desperately turned on and trying really hard to hide it.

Luckily Alex Danvers was not unused to having surprises thrown in her face and recovered quickly. With barely a beat of pause, Danvers continued in a professional voice, "I'm sorry to run off, but call me as soon as you get something to check out – I want to be there."

As easily as the agent could read Detective Sawyer, Maggie could do the same for her ex, and that short pause and the way Danvers had frozen momentarily after looking at Maggie told the detective that Alex was fully aware of what was going on now. The two women stared at each other for a moment, having one conversation with their eyes and bodies while their mouths had another entirely unrelated one.

"You want in on this?" Maggie repeated, asking for confirmation.

Alex nodded, crossing her hands behind her back and clenching them into fists in an effort to keep from reaching out to touch Sawyer. "I'll help all I can. They tried to rope Supergirl into this – it's personal now."

Maggie noticed the gesture and swallowed, knowing what it meant. "I'll let you know as soon as I find something then."

Agent Danvers noticed her ex-fiance's voice was starting to sound a little strained and decided to beat a hasty retreat for both their sakes, saying her goodbye and striding briskly from the department. Maggie stayed stiffly upright in her chair until Alex was out the front door to the precinct and then the detective collapsed down onto her desk with a groan, letting her head thump against the wood.

Alex similarly held herself stiffly professional and tense until she was all the way back at the DEO and back in her office with the door closed behind her, before she sagged against the inside of the door. " _Fuck_ ," she said with feeling into the empty room.

\----

Despite the terrors of the previous day, Lena had insisted that she go back into work the next morning – after carefully extracting herself from a snuggling Kara without waking the blonde up. Kara had eventually woken up once Lena had called for a ride back to her place, but despite the superhero's protests, the CEO was adamant about going in.

"Kara, thank you for trying to take care of me," Lena said honestly – and she really was grateful, seeing as how so few people actually cared what happened to the youngest Luthor. "But what I really need is some semblance of normalcy right now, and that means work."

Kara opened her mouth to interrupt, but Lena continued before she could.

"Don't worry – I'll be taking it easy and won't be doing anything stressful or dangerous. I have a bunch of product and material research to review, so I'll just be sitting at my desk," the CEO said persuasively.

The blonde reporter wasn't happy with this idea but acquiesced on the condition that Lena allow Alex to assign some agents to her as a protection detail, which the CEO wasn't all that upset about accepting. Once Lena had taken some time to reassure Kara, she let her driver take her back to her penthouse so she could shower and change. It was weird to suddenly be alone again after her ordeal, especially since she'd spent the entire time since then in the company of other people, but both Jess and Kara were in constant contact with her over text which went a long ways towards soothing Lena's nerves.

Still, the youngest Luthor felt skittish and uncertain until she got back to L-Corp. As soon as she walked into the building the CEO could see that security had been heightened, probably even doubled, most likely at Jess' behest. Lena thought about making a detour to go up to the security reception desk to find out if the security personnel from yesterday were okay, but then realized that they probably wouldn't be comfortable with their CEO standing at the reception desk in the middle of the lobby. Instead, she went up to her floor and proceeded to question Jess about it thoroughly, wanting to know who had been hurt, or if there had been any damage or intrusions into their systems.

Jess at first was reluctant to have Lena hear about all the gritty details, but Luthors were forces to be reckoned with and Lena was no exception, so the CEO eventually got everything out of her assistant. After that, Lena closed herself up in her office and sat down to look at her company's products, which was honestly one of the highlights of being the CEO – she got to see all the fun and intriguing work they were doing.

After a few hours, Lena had needed to take some calls from her board of directors, and called up Jess to reshuffle all the meetings for the week since she probably wouldn't be doing anything in-person that day. Once they'd gone through all the business details, Lena had some non-work topics to bring up.

“And Jess?” Lena added.

“Yes, Ms. Luthor?”

“Please arrange to have more flowers sent to Ms. Danvers' office at CatCo. Same instructions as before – actually wait, I can’t remember what instructions I gave for last time, but in any case fill her office with flowers please.”

Jess paused for a moment to write everything down, and then her curiosity got the better of her. “Ms. Luthor, I thought you’d moved on from Ms. Danvers.”

Lena sighed, then said, “Honestly, I’ll probably never move on from Kara Danvers.”

Jess made an involuntary frustrated noise, and she hoped her boss hadn’t heard. “I just mean to say you had stopped your pursuit of her for a while.”

“Well,” said Lena, with amusement in her voice, “consider the pursuit back on.”

“Yes, Ms. Luthor.”

One thing Jess sometimes couldn’t help was her snark, and although her boss was strict about certain things – like speaking her mind in front of important visitors, which Jess knew better than to ever do – Lena Luthor had never been bothered when Jess spoke her mind. Or at least she’d never been bothered enough to punish Jess in any way, which the assistant considered to be the same thing.

“All it took was one night with her to get back on that horse, Ms. Luthor?” Jess mused quietly, as if she were thinking out loud to herself. “I shall make note of it for the future.”

“Jess!” Lena sounded shocked and almost offended. “You most certainly will not make a note of that,” the CEO said firmly.

“Very well, Ms. Luthor,” Jess replied without missing a beat, voice as completely neutral and nonjudgmental as if they were talking about scheduling review meetings.

There was a pause, and then Jess could hear laughing over the intercom.

“Alright, touche. Now don’t forget: flowers, project review call with Japan at 3, and also order me some lunch.”

“Already on its way, Ms. Luthor.”

“Very good. Thank you, Jess,” she said, the CEO’s voice sounding amused as she turned off the intercom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapter but I'm still trying to figure out where I want the fic to go and am sloooooooooooowly writing more. It might be kinda sparse for the next couple updates since this month and next month will be hectic.


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